Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski claims Bundesliga topscorer prize for fourth time
Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski has been confirmed as the Bundesliga’s top goalscorer for the second year running – the fourth time he has ended the season with the Torjägerkanone prize.
Lewandowski finished the 2018/19 campaign with 22 goals after the record German champions sealed a seventh Bundesliga title in succession with a 5-1 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday.
The Poland international had started the final matchday four goals ahead of his closest rival, Borussia Dortmund’s Paco Alcacer, with Eintracht’s Luka Jovic a goal further back.
Lewandowski has had more prolific campaigns in the past, but 2018/19 has certainly been a special one. Not only did the 30-year-old take his own personal haul of German league titles to seven, but he also surpassed former Bayern striker Claudio Pizarro as the record foreign goalscorer in Bundesliga history.
As usual, Lewandowski saved many of his strikes for the crunch stages of a season in which he passed the 200-goal mark in the Bundesliga - and also got on the scoresheet 16 times in other competitions.
The iconic number nine had a slow start in the league, but he netted twice in a 3-1 success at Wolfsburg on Matchday 8, a victory that brought Bayern’s worrying four-game winless run in all competitions to an end.
Lewandowski’s double against former club Dortmund in November’s thrilling Klassiker were in vain, but with Bayern suddenly playing catch up in the title race the master marksman came into his own.
The ex-Lech Poznan frontman had his name on the scoresheet 12 times between Matchday 18 and 33, a run which included goals in away wins over UEFA Champions League hopefuls Hoffenheim and Borussia Mönchengladbach.
He got what proved a vital equaliser in the 1-1 draw with Freiburg on Matchday 27, and a week later scored a brace in an ultimately decisive 5-0 hammering of title rivals Dortmund in Munich.
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In finishing top of the pile again, Lewandowski has moved ahead of Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in the list of players who have ended a season as the top goalscorer most often in the league’s history. He is now behind only another Bayern legend, Gerd Müller, who was top of the scoring charts on seven occasions in his career – albeit sharing the award three times.
Lewandowski first got his hands on the Torjägerkanone at the end of the 2013/14 campaign, after scoring 20 goals in 33 matches during the last of his four years at Borussia Dortmund.
The peerless Pole took the honour again in 2015/16 when he scored 30 goals in 32 matches. Despite matching that tally a year later, he was pipped by then-Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2016/17 before claiming the prize again the following year with 29 goals in 30 appearances.
With 20x goals in 290 games, Lewandowski is now fifth on the list of all-time top goalscorers in Bundesliga history, within striking distance of Manfred Burgsmüller (213) and his former Bayern manager Jupp Heynckes (220). Former 1860 Munich and Schalke attacker Klaus Fischer (268) is number two in the ranking, but Lewandowski still has quite a bit to do if he is to overtake Müller.
Known as Der Bomber, the man currently occupying top spot in the overall standings had an incredible haul of 365 goals in 427 Bundesliga games for Bayern between 1964 and 1979.
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